THE HUMAN DEBT CEILING

Three Major Factors  Have Combined To The Detriment Of Society. We Know What They Are, But Can We Reverse The Trend They Have Created?

None of us knew what the debt ceiling was until recently. And now everyone is saying that if we don't keep raising it, it will be the end of the world, a financial Armageddon.

But I am more concerned with the borrowing we have been doing against the asset of our positive humanity. The federal budget concerns will work themselves out. The humanity debt ceiling is the one we should be worried about.

Every time we get into a discussion of how to change and help our society, we begin to argue about things which are distractions like gun control, race and money. But the real issue is how we will pay the societal obligation, the personal currency made of the failures of our once great nation.

And there is no one thing to look at, rather there are three. All of our concerns and challenges are three layers in the cake we all baked in America. They are broad strokes to be sure, but if we can believe and accept where we have pushed our human debt ceiling, then we can lower it and America can be great again. Because you see, we are not great anymore. We are living on past glory, running on the fumes of noble wars and nobler achievements.

Here are the layers, the unholy trinity of anti-humanity.

MATERIALISM - Even though we are a capitalist society, there were always limits to the lust for money and the greed for everything else that is superficial. Family, love and God were the real foundation of a person's heart.

Not anymore.

From the time we are kids, we're told that possessing things makes you important if not better than others. In the past, this was balanced by the above-mentioned values. But now possession and value are the end game. We feel moral assets will be forthcoming if we first have the tangible man-made asset in hand first. How often has someone said: "Let's not get married or have kids until we can afford it?" The only thing worse than this notion is the fact that it is a real concern. We have monetized the very concept of happiness like a cheap DVD player at Walmart.

And to further destroy our hearts, we now believe that we have a God who shows his approval by bestowing us with man-made value and not eternal love, even though Jesus asked his Apostles to give up their wealth to spread His word and priests take vows of poverty. The elevation of external value over internal human worth is the doorway to all things evil.

IDIOCRACY - This component of our national debt is not so much about how smart we are but rather how much we value intelligence. Sadly, the answer is not very much.

We used to aspire to intelligence, feeling that education was a necessity and a pathway to a better life and the opportunity to help our fellow man. Now we do not aspire to, nor do we admire intellect unless it benefits the cause of materialism.

The creator of Facebook is not admired for innovation but the cleverness he used in screwing his friends and colleagues out of it for money. ( I think I hear them canceling my account)

We do not read, expand our minds or pay homage to talent, quality or the aptitude it takes to acquire them. In our intellectual failure, we actually now worship stupidity and see it as a no-nonsense, common-man asset. In many ways, this is the biggest debt we owe ourselves. Man's intelligence has lifted him up over all forms of life on this planet. Ignoring this fact is, you guessed it, not the smart thing to do.

FAITHLESSNESS - Inexorably intertwined with the first two sins is the failure of faith. Faith has been described in many ways but to me it has always been an acquiescence to do good, a commitment to righteousness.

We believe more in churches, men and money than we do in Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Motivated by greed and led by stupidity, we are not Job who suffered for faith but Cain who slew his brother then lied to God.



This is the first debt taken and not paid back in our nation. Faithlessness leads to the substitution of materialism for God and the abandonment of intelligence to explain and sustain the action.

Even if you are an atheist or agnostic you must have faith if not in God then in your fellow man. The lapse of that kind of faith has the same result. (By the way, you are all going to Hell)

I am a religion cynic but I am not a God cynic. Man's process and structure for understanding God is stained by you, guessed it, materialism and stupidity. We do not love our neighbor, we are not our brother's keeper and our hearts are not filled with the light of faith but the earth-bound darkness of our own mortality.

And after this, comes oblivion.

LOWER THE HUMAN DEBT CEILING

Where do we look to fix this problem?

The church?

Excuse me,  I was just laughing for a full minute at that. No, that is not the answer and in many ways, the problem. Religious leaders prefer to dispense vague rhetoric and request obedience rather than take action. Sorry fellas but if God ain't intervening on the mess we have now, he's never gonna do it.

Politicians? This just elicits even more laughter. Politicians are not problem-solvers they are directors of influence and usually all they do is direct it toward themselves.

Not surprisingly, the answer is on the other side of your mirror. That man or woman you see is the only person who can save you and the world. And it is actually quite simple. We just have to live our lives in pursuit of the opposite of the unholy trinity above.

Benevolence, intellect and faith will find us swimming in a budget surplus of positive humanity. And best news is we won't need anyone in government to help us do it.

Copyright 2011

AFRICAN AMERICANS DIVIDED OVER BLACK MAN WHO SOLD HIMSELF INTO "SLAVERY!"

The Supreme Court Of Georgia Upholds $3 Million Dollar "Life-Contract" Made Between White Billionaire and Black Man.

ATLANTA -Yet another controversial figure has divided the opinions of African Americans over what is right versus what is profitable and the limits of dignity and commerce. In the past months, Blacks have argued about cinema images and a news anchor with a simian head. And now a new issue has blown up: Voluntary Slavery.

LaShawn Baker had no idea the controversy he'd start when he applied for a job he read about in the classifieds. The ad said Thaddeus Greystone, a local Georgia billionaire was looking for a "long-term manservant."

'I thought it was a butler, you know" says Baker, 25. "When he said he was looking for a lifetime servant, I was shocked."

That was until he heard the salary. Greystone's offer was for $3 million for the life of the contract but the catch is you had to work for him for your entire natural life.

"That's slavery!" says Benjamin jealous, CEO of the NAACP. "You can't just buy a man like that and force him to work for life. This is more of that crazy Tea Party thinking, blurring the lines to go back in time."

The problem with the NAACP position is Baker isn't being forced and he's getting the money. It is not technically slavery if you pay the slave. And to further complicate matters. Baker has to address Greystone "Sir" or "Lord" which Jealous says might as well be "Massa." Also, Baker cannot "talk back" to his boss or make direct eye contact with him. He can't leave the estate for more that five hours without permission and must wear a standard uniform which includes white gloves.

Greystone, 48, calls the slavery notion ridiculous. "The boy is getting paid and handsomely. The average American makes $2 million in a lifetime. He's getting fifty percent more than that. Also, I do not beat him, abuse him or force him to have sex with strange women. He does have to dance for guests at parties but he's really good at it."



The NAACP brought a case to sever the contract. It went to the Georgia Supreme Court who upheld the contract saying there was no evidence of a violation of the 13th Amendment as Baker was not being forced to make the deal.

African Americans are sharply divided over the situation.

"I don't see nothing wrong with it," said Andrew Johnson, 32, of Chicago. "Shit that's a lot of money and we all gotta have a job. The man's making a smart move. I mean it ain't dignified but he on the hustle and gettin' money is the goal. And if a man wants to put on a dress, a monkey head or slave chains, it's his own personal business.

"I am sick to my stomach," says Corinne Watson, 41, of Florida. "White people are always trying to own black people. First it was celebrities adopting black babies all over the place now this. What is their damned problem? And what the hell is happening to Black people? It's like we're all in the Matrix. Negroes need to stop this nonsense and swallow the red pill."

Baker thinks the controversy is spawned by jealously. "These people are definitely hating on me. That one dude's name is actually jealous! They're bitter and upset about Black's position in life. I'm trying to do something about my situation. I'd rather be a paid slave than a broke inmate."

Ben Jealous sees a deeper concern. "Other black kids, filled with doubt about their future will try to sell themselves into this kind of servitude. To say nothing of the image it sets forth. It only takes one man to debase himself to set off a chain reaction.

Jealous may be right. Baker has become a viral celebrity, especially among white supremacy groups who hail him as "The Only Real African American."

The NAACP and other civil rights groups have banded together to take the case to the Supreme Court. But legal scholars say as long as it it voluntary and as long as he is being paid, it is every man's choice whether he is a slave.

Copyright 2011

MONKEY-HEADED ANCHORMAN TELLS CNN DON LEMON "TO GO STRAIGHT TO HELL!"

Black Anchorman Rakeif Washington Gets
High Ratings And Champions The Cause Of African Americans. But Is He Wrong for Doing It Wearing A Monkey's Head?

Rakeif Washington is a primetime News star. His show "Rakeif Washington's Journal" draws three times the audience of his nearest competitor and his brand has changed the game of news. He has a mid seven figure contract and he has been quoted by every news outlet in America.

The only problem is he does his show wearing an animatronic monkey's head.

"Actually, I dress as a chimp," says Washington, 38. Chimps are the smartest of the primates. Only man is more intelligent, well, unless we're talking about certain parts of Mississippi."

Washington has angered many Blacks who say his persona is harmful and supports the racist notion that Blacks are closer to monkeys than men. Washington says the monkey is a metaphor.

"I don't fuc***g believe this!" said Don Lemon, a black anchor at CNN. I'm busting my ass to be a journalist, working crazy hours and some asshole puts on a monkey mask and gets a show? Ed Bradley has to be turning over in his grave. This man is a panderer and there's no other word for it."

Washington took umbrage with these statements and said on his twitter feed that Don Lemon was "a loser and could go straight to hell."

Others agree with Washington. "He's getting the issues out there," said Deena Riverton, an African American news reporter from New Orleans. "Rakeif's talking about things other Black journalists are afraid to say. He called for Reparations and an end to the Penal Industrial Complex. And he wants blacks to return to the church. When he said there should be a tax deduction for hair weaves, I wanted to kiss his big, hairy face."



Washington wears a full-sized simian head as he rails against injustice on his show. His segment, They Got To Be Bananas" features the faces of politicians of the week on bananas. Washington peels away their arguments then eats them.

"The man's getting paid and that's the bottom line, " said Renaldo Weyburne, a black blogger from Detroit. I don't find him offensive. Look, I got a couple of cousins that I wouldn't know where to place on that evolutionary chart. Those other black journalists are just bougie haters. They don't have the nerve to dress like a monkey. They're just hatin' the hate that's hatefully hateration."

Still others say it's a matter of subtlety. "Chimps are cute and brown," says. Thelma Anderson-Jones, a Black local news anchor from Seattle. "Now if he dressed like a gorilla, that would be offensive. Gorillas are, you know, really dark."

Donna Brazille, Black news commentator and Obama aid says Washington is a disgrace. "Are people crazy? There's no gray area here. The man's dressed as a goddamned monkey! The attempt to explain it as satire is to ignore years of denigrating imagery forced upon African Americans. Some fool even tried to tell me that the monkey character is a metaphor for iconic males in black families! I wanted to smack his dumbass silly."

But Washington is indeed getting paid. His Funkey Monkey Brand has been put on books, T-shirts, coffee mugs, banana flavored milk and men's boxers. Some suggest that he's taking home and extra $5 million a year in endorsements. That ain't peanuts, folks.



Washington's success has sparked heated debate from the board room to the barbershop. Does a black journalist's work carry a dual responsibility to the image of his race? Is it wrong to impose some cultural standard on him? Isn't there room for both monkey and non-monkey journalism? And if you don't like Washington's show, can't you just turn it off and let him do his thing?

"Black people should never criticize each other," says Melinda Hines, president of the Rakeif Washington fansite. "We should be able to say anything, do anything, present any image no matter how offensive and no matter how much it corrupts, influences or otherwise harms the existing perceptions of our race. No black expression should ever be taboo-- except that bitch NeNe!

WHN Incorporated, the parent of World Headline News, is sticking by it's hairy host saying that "[W]e fully support Rakeif's brilliant interpretation and his efforts to fight for his people. We do not feel that a Black man in a monkey head is per se racist or offensive or represents black people anymore than a camel represents a Middle Easterner or an Indian represents a 7-11."

Washington doesn't plan to let detractors stop his empire from growing. He has a new studio deal and he's shooting a TV drama about a brilliant but sensitive intern who wears a monkey head at a big city hospital called Simian's Wake.

But the protest against Washington continues to grow. The American Society of Black Journalists have petitioned WHNI to remove Washington from the air and vow to fight until the network is "monkey free."

Copyright 2011

SPIKE LEE, TYLER PERRY & STEPIN FETCHIT'S REVENGE

This is The Continuation Of An Artistic Fight That Started 80 Years Ago. In The Real World We Are Billionaires, Geniuses And Presidents. Why Can't We Be The Same In The World Of Art?

Spike Lee's film Bamboozled was a bold, incendiary movie about a future where black people would be so removed from their nobility, roots and history that a TV show with actual, black-faced minstrels became popular. The movie did not make a lot of money but many critics thought it was a masterpiece. I agree.

And now the film has in part become a reality.

We now have images, music and movies that would have been comfortable in America 80 years ago and that just 20 years ago would have made us go into the streets with torches and pitchforks. Now we look at this denigration and assess how much money someone is making from it and use that to justify why it's OK and why we shouldn't care. Are we so beaten down, depressed and broken that new millennium black-face is representative of our culture? And if anyone says out loud that they don't like it, are they a "hater" because they didn't think of it sooner to make money?

This is at the heart of the Spike Lee Tyler Perry Feud. Spike has said repeatedly that the images in Perry's films are harmful and echo painful imagery of our oppressed past. Idris Elba and John Singleton also spoke out against Perry's films. Are they haters as well? Or do we all now subscribe to the explanation "It's real, we know people like this in our families." That sounds like the drug dealer who says "society left me no choice."




We all know the history of the minstrel. It was an effort to make black people's images consistent with the falsity of our inhumanity. In the beginning, it was our enemies who fostered these images. Now we help them out: the buffoon, the pickaninny and the Jezebel have been replaced with the loud-mouthed reality show star, the ho, the feminized male, the stupid thug or rapper and the ignorant, obese innocent. Sorry NeNe, last time we saw you, you were yelling how you didn't know nothing 'bout birthin' no babies.

In the 1930's, one of the most successful actors in the country was a man named Lincoln Theodore Monroe Andrew Perry, you know him now as his infamous movie character Stepin Fetchit. He was the first black actor to receive a screen credit and the first to become a millionaire. His lazy, bug-eyed character was wildly popular with whites but what you never read about is that he was also popular with blacks, who then in 1930, just wanted to see a black person onscreen.

Mostly though there was widespread opposition to Perry and his odious character in the black community. And so there was heated debate. Many black leaders, including Paul Robeson disliked his films and said so in public. Some felt that Perry was successful and so it was okay, while others felt that he was destroying any chance black people had of being taken seriously. Perry was called a brilliant businessman and a tireless entertainer but also a buffoon, a minstrel and a clown....

I'm sorry, which century and which Perry was I talking about?

In the 1970's, Jimmie JJ Walker's character was similarly called offensive and he was defended by noting his success as the highest paid man in TV. Co-star John Amos objected to the character publicly and eventually left the show in what is now a famous episode of Good Times. Black TV characters like JJ were around for the next fifteen years, until a man named Cosby changed the game. Stepin Fetchit died a pariah and Jimmie Walker's TV character is still considered an embarrassment.




Stepin Fetchit must be looking at this from the great beyond and laughing. He was ridiculed in his life time but it seems that his legacy just won't die. Lincoln Perry was not a stupid man but an ambitious one who saw opportunity and thought money and fame would buy him respect and legitimacy. He was wrong.

This is the part where we wonder why we can't "all get together" and do something. People, we can't get together to order a pizza in the black community. And we can never decipher why wealthy black business people don't invest in black film. But what we can do is stop supporting stereotypes. if we do, people will have no reason to make them. Stepin Fetchit's films kept going because people paid to see them and as soon as they stopped, he stopped. I can tell you right now, that if black people don't fund their own films and support the positive ones, we will never see the stories we want. And for that we will have no one to blame but ourselves. And Lincoln Perry will have his revenge.

The modern black mind is very complicated and filled with many inconsistencies. We want so much to be just like everyone else but at the same time we want recognition of our unique position in this country as the only descendants of American bondage. We want to get beyond our stereotypes but we desperately cling to them and we defiantly demand to be part of American culture as we still seek to define our own.

Reviewing a book on Stepin Fetchit, commentator Armond White wrote:

Should African-American performers be accountable to political correctness? To what degree should they worry that their antics shape the self-image of young African-Americans? Should they follow any standard other than their own conscience? Should they have a conscience? ... The psychological rationale for racism cuts two ways—flattering whites and defaming blacks—and it rebounded upon Stepin Fetchit and stained his soul. Watkins revives the ghost without heeding the opportunistic performers who follow Stepin Fetchit's path, a scary thing.

So, I ask you who are we, people? The Family at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue in D.C. or Madea's Big Happy Family? And if you think we are both, then tell me where the Obama family movie is. I want to buy a ticket.

COPYRIGHT 2011